this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Couple of observations. I am the sole earner in our house. I am fortunate that I make about $140k and we live suburban Texas. In our family of 4 our basic expenses are as follows.
Mortgage is $2100/ month
Homeowners insurance $400/ month
Property tax $200/month
Car insurance $185/month
Electricity $250/month (average)
Natural gas $40/month
Water+trash $200/month
Internet $90/month
Streaming (disney/netflix/audible) $45/month
Groceries $400-600/month
Gas $200/month
Toll roads $50-100/month
Cell phone $200/month
Coffee once a week $40/month
Date night food (once a week) $500/month
Fucking health insurance for the family is $750/month (my contribution, my employer pays the majority)
Roughly $6250/month give or take.
We don't have consumer debt, no car notes, no child care (stay at home parent cares for the kids) no daycare, and no paid child activities.
That is just our fixed expenses, something always comes up so obviously there is more but its inconsistent.
My car is a 2019 wrx that was $30k we paid it off last year but the note on that was $470/month. I couldn't get that car for that price today.
We have an older suv for my partner and I have an old pickup that sits unused unless we need to make a hardware run, those vehicles are paid for, no loans and have been for 10+ years.
Our last house was purchased for $191k in 2016 and we sold it for $295k this past year.
Our insurance went from $1200/year to $4800 per year on that house before we sold it. Similar thing with property taxes.
Unless you have managed a 10% return or salary increase, your money doesn't go as far as it used to.
I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. For what I am paid, I feel like its reasonable to contribute more in taxes based on my earnings, but as a result, my take home is obviously not $140k. So when you figure fixed expenses are ~$75k, plus my 401k contributions, savings for my kids college fund, and incidentals for stuff like car tires, birthdays, christmas, house repairs, medical expenses, etc, its relatively easy to eat up the remainder of that pool.
Your house is too big and you own too many cars
Yeah, I saw that $30k for a car and immediately dismissed everything this person said. I've never in my life paid more than $8k for a vehicle.
30k is not an expensive car. You're doing great buying used, but that's a low price for a decent new car.
$30k was an expensive car… 10 years ago. The average price for a new car topped $50k last month. $30k in my area would maybe get you a used car, probably two or three years old from a car rental company dumping old inventory with too many miles. The used car market still hasn’t calmed down after the component shortage that nearly halted new car production a few years ago. And since used car prices are still astronomically inflated, new cars can sell for whatever the hell they want and they’ll still have wait-lists.
Covid and post covid, used cars are insane. When I bought that car, I could have gotten a 2 year old version of it with 70k miles on it for 27k or a new one for 30. The loan was 0.9% so it didn't make any sense to get the used one.
You should have read the rest, the car is paid off. You can do that if you are responsible with your money. That new car that I bought in 2019 was because I was driving 40k miles per year for work at the time and I needed something reliable after my last car started showing its age and left me stranded a couple times. It had 175k miles on it when I sold it after having 3 water pumps, 2 thermostats, 4 high pressure fuel pumps, a radiator, several cooling hoses, an oil cooler, and a clutch replaced, all done myself. The mid 2000s minis were not reliable cars out of warranty.